Ocular dirofilariasis: two case reports

Abstract

Since 1990s, the prevalence increase of dirofilariasis with local transmission of infection in a zone of a temperate climate is observed. Сases of Dirofilaria repens infection in humans were registered in 42 territorial entities of the Russian Federation. Two male patients: P., 66 years old, and F., 64 years old, both Leningrad region residents, requested medical assistance at the St. Petersburg Municipal Clinical Hospital No 2 for a feeling of moving foreign body under the conjunctiva of the right eye, local hyperemia and edema of inferior and superior eyelids. Through a conjunctival incision, a threadlike white object was removed in each of the two cases (11.7 cm long, and 0.6 mm thick in the first case, and 13.5 cm long, 0.6 mm thick in the second case). The parasite was identified as impuberal female Dirofilaria repens in both cases.